State to Check Heat Precautions Taken by Homes for Mentally Ill

For the first time, the State Health Department is sending inspectors to adult homes across the New York City region to ensure that they are running air-conditioners and taking other precautions to prevent mentally ill residents from succumbing to heat-related illnesses.

The department is requiring some homes to install air-conditioners in common areas immediately, and has barred operators from charging residents extra fees to run them in rooms. The department has offered to help the state-regulated homes, which are privately operated, to obtain special state financing to buy air-conditioners.

The department said that in addition to deploying inspectors, it was monitoring ambulance calls to determine whether residents were being hospitalized with heat-related illnesses. Officials have also begun a campaign to ensure that the homes understand that severely mentally ill people are acutely susceptible to heat because of their inability to care for themselves, their poor general health and their psychotropic medication, which can affect the body's temperature regulation.

''We are very serious about this,'' said the state health commissioner, Dr. Antonia C. Novello. ''I just don't want to see one more resident dying because the department has not done everything it could.''

The measures are part of a raft of new regulations and policies adopted by the Pataki administration in response to a three-part series in The New York Times in late April that documented neglect and abuse at the state's adult homes, which house 15,000 mentally ill people.

An article in the series described how during the summers, some residents lacked air-conditioning, fans or even basic ventilation. In an analysis of deaths at 26 of the largest and most troubled adult homes in the city, July and August were found to be the deadliest months in four of the past seven years.

Many of the homes have air-conditioners in rooms, but until this summer would not run them unless residents paid an extra $25 to $150 a month, which few could afford.

Operators say they cannot shoulder the cost of air-conditioning because the state pays them only $28 a day to house, feed and supervise the residents. Dr. Novello has responded that she is overseeing a wide-ranging effort to examine overhauling the system, including the question of whether the fees need to be changed.